Tantalus champions sustainable cannabis

Cannabis Amanda Siebert

As Canada gets closer to cannabis legalization, one local licensed producer is taking a decidedly different approach to cultivation by embracing the tenets of sustainable agriculture.

At Sunlab, Tantalus Labs’ futuristic cannabis greenhouse situated on the outskirts of Maple Ridge, founder and managing director Dan Sutton oversees a team of experts who specialize in everything from quality assurance and e-commerce to commercial agriculture and, of course, cannabis cultivation.

Here, Tantalus and its shareholders have spent five years and many millions of dollars constructing what might just be the most sustainability-minded purpose-built cannabisgrowing facility in Canada.

Presently, just 500 seedlings have been planted—but over the course of the next few years as Sunlab becomes fully operational, the 75,000-square-foot greenhouse will employ automated irrigation systems that utilize recycled rainwater, while a filtration system will cycle air every seven minutes to reduce the risk of pests and mould.

Special sensors that hang from the ceiling will allow staff to monitor the greenhouse’s humidity and temperature, while remote-controlled partitions will help facilitate the separation of plants at different growth stages. At full scale, Sunlab will be 120,000 square feet in size. The facility’s use of sunlight will not only reduce its electricity demand by 90 percent, Sutton says, it will also make for high-quality cannabis.

“Just look at these pots,” Sutton says, pointing out a stack of planters while giving the Straight a tour. “It took us four whole months just to decide which ones had the best air-flow capabilities.”

Indeed, the nuances of the greenhouse and the company are many, but the goal of Sunlab is simple: to prove that top-shelf cannabis can be grown sustainably and at a commercial scale with sunlight.

“The core of it is certainly sustainability. We see the history of cannabis cultivation as one that’s been closeted, one that’s been kept in the dark, kept out of the light and subjugated to the shadows,” he says. “This is a plant that thrives in sunlight, it thrives in high-light-intensity environments, and it’s a fast-growing plant, so we really wanted to take that sustainability mission and attach it to a product that has been given every biological, genetic, and agricultural opportunity to thrive.”

Location plays an important role as well. Sutton is of the opinion that there’s no better place in Canada to grow cannabis than the Fraser Valley, where, he says, the combination of humidity, wind patterns, and mild seasonal changes in temperature provides excellent conditions for cultivation.

“It’s an environment that almost caters itself to cannabis, and that really is the origins of the storied history of B.C. bud,” he says.

By combining carefully employed technology with the area’s nearly ideal environmental conditions, he says, it will be Sunlab’s job “not to re-create that environment, but to take it and nudge it in the right direction”.